Dad went down hill in a different but not uncommon way. He was finally diagnosed 4 years ago with something called Louie Body’s Disease. It has aspects of Dementia with symptoms of Palsy, Parkinson and nerve damage through out his body.

Think of it like this – your driving in a very deep fog. You have to concentrate and focus all your attention on keeping control of the car. You can’t see more than a few feet in front of you and although you can answer some questions and hold a limited conversation, if you have too many questions or noise or attention placed upon you at once it becomes an over load and you’ll drive off the road and crash.

It started at least 12 years ago we think with his depression. He was, at one time, a computer engineer in a high position of authority and had many, many people under his charge. He is a very intelligent man and used his brain daily in both his job and in his encounters with family and friends.

Dad didn’t have any hobbies. All he had was his work and family. When he retired and the kids were out of the house, his ride down the slippery slope into his private abyss became apparent.  His depression got so bad he wouldn’t even get out of bed in the morning.

The doctors tried a variety of cocktails without ever really knowing what was truly wrong with him which is fairly common in depression cases. The culmination of treatments came when he checked himself into the hospital on Thanksgiving weekend for electric shock therapy.  This was considered the last line of defense for chronic depression cases. The interesting thing about it was that the first thing they did in prepping him for treatment was to take him completely off all his psychotropic medications, which had the amazing effect of actually giving him back some sense of himself.

We visited Dad the day before he was to be subjected to the brain frying currents. As we walked into his room we were the ones in shock. There was my father, dressed neatly, standing erect and acting completely alert. Gone was that foggy look in his eyes we had become accustom to seeing. His bottom lip wasn’t hanging down creating a collection of drool that would drip incisively onto his t-shirt and he had a aura of energy about him that I have not seen in almost 5 years.

He also acted extremely pissed.

It was as if once they stopped the drugs his “doctor” had been giving him it reversed his depression. The medication prescribed to help his condition had actually made it worse and once he got off them he got better. Not healed but at least him wasn’t a walking, hulking catatonic shadow of the man he once was.

I had been against the drugs for depression and fought with my mom and brothers but that’s another story. Suffice it to say that he went on with his shock treatment which had limited if any affect and after a while they decided to move out of the house they had lived in for almost 30 years since arriving to California, bought a nice little mobile home in the next town over and settled in with the rest of the retirees.

It didnt’ take long for him to fall further away and after about a year at the mobile home park his doctor came upon his last diagnosis. He gave us the grave news that Dad had only a short time to live. The condition was fatal and we should think in terms of blocks of time, perhaps 3 or 6 months left. I remember asking if it was the Louie Body’s that would cause his death and was told “no” that like a lot of Dementia cases it’s usually a secondary infection like a flu that will do him in.

“How are his internal organs? ” I asked.

“Does he suffer from Diabetes or high blood pressure or malnutrition or anything like that?”

“No.” was the answer. So I bet the doctor that his conclusion was wrong. I bet that Dad was going to last longer than anyone expected.  I was right.

Thank god my youngest brother makes a lot of money because he’s been the one that has footed the bill for Dad’s care.and has helped mom financially as well. The rest of us do what we can but unlike him we have kids of our own. Dad’s in a nice home with room the clock care. He doesn’t have any health issues per say except of course for the disease. He can walk with assistance and a walker but mostly he wants to either eat or go to bed and dream of his wife.  

Mom has had bad knees and finally had her left one replaced. That was difficult but she had been recovering well until one day she slipped in her kitchen, fell and broke her hip. That had to be replaced. The hip, not the kitchen.

So now she is bionic on her left side and will need to have her right knee replaced sometime soon. She hasn’t traveled on a plane in sometime and at this rate it will be interesting to see how many bells and whistles she will set off at the airport.

Observing my parent’s decline has made me think of my own.  

I’ve spent my life trying to stay in shape and have bounced up and down the scale never becoming obese but definitely gaining more weight than I, or my doctor, wanted. And even though I would be considered to be in good health I never really think about how old I am.

Until I have to get out of bed in the morning.

Joints, skin, bowels and back all come together and go out it seems at the same time or in close proximity of each other. I realize I must do some form of exercise everyday or I’ll rust up. Stretching has become more important and the need to do more cardio is evident.

I hate running. I look like the last rhino in a line of animals headed for the watering hole with the need to have my own greens-man following behind me to replace the divots I kick up as I trudge through the park. I try to find other ways like hitting the heavy bag and StairMaster. Slowly I make progress and lose some poundage. The hard part is keeping the weight off.

Ice cream is my nemesis.

We know each other too well.

My parents never did the whole exercise thing although Dad used to go to the gym when he was younger but that stopped after he hit 60. I don’t think I ever want to stop. I enjoy it and I know, seeing my folks as they are, that I need it. The thought of turning to rust creates visions of myself as the Tin Man, standing in the field, motionless and stiff.

Oil Can! Oil Can!

I know at 51 I’m not an old man but seeing kids in the mall who range in age from 19 to 30 makes me feel older. Mentally we never go beyond the age of high school or perhaps college. We may mature physically but not really emotionally. What we liked and disliked in school stays pretty much the same. We may acquire new tastes and hopefully wisdom, usually through experience, but in essence in our heads we haven’t changed.

I understand now what I didn’t get when I was twenty and saw some guy in his forties or fifties looking at the young girls. Were they being dirty old men for having thoughts, never to be acted upon about girls half their age?  Because we don’t call guys of the same age as the girls they pick up on as dirty men. They may be horny but that comes with the territory.

We don’t see ourselves as the age we are at. When we’re younger we thing we’re older. When we get older in body our self image doesn’t age.

One thing I do notice as I get older. I can lose my train of thought and babble. Blogging helps, kinda.

In the short span of just a little over two centuries we have gone from majestic revolutionaries to a land of apathetic, paralyzed malcontents that would rather channel surf on our 52″ plasma screens in search of the latest bimbo on parade escapade than take arms against the assault laid upon the very foundation of our society, the rape of our environment and the destruction of commerce that has supported out prosperous way of life.

Over the last 7 and a half years we have seen the manipulation of a once proud and enthusiastic people steered to the trough of war and persuaded to dine on the entrails of lies and deceits fed to us by the very leaders who have sworn to protect us.  200 years ago the patriots of the 13 colonies would have reacted to the putrid aroma of falsehoods and malfeasance by shoving a load of shot directly into the belly of the beast, calling for their heads and rousting the town to come together and rid the countryside of the very shadow cast by a tyrant who dare defile our liberty.

Alas the shouts of the Green Mountain Boys are nothing more than whispers on the wind, drowned out by the latest broadcast of monarch owned network babble, cyber streamed antics of face planted adolescence and fame seeking street walkers posing as talent. 

Where is the outrage?

Where is the passion for the rights our ancestors and love ones spilled their life’s blood for? 

We would rather spend out time bemoaning the lack of quality entertainment and bitch about a government that has neither cared for the common man nor acts in their defense all the while sitting on our hands awaiting the next beer bong filled with the latest toxic brew of premium cable titillation to be thrust down our gullet until we puke on the very meal we admit to distaste but openly accept. 

The atrocities perpetrated by an elite gang of thugs who purchased their way into power has apparently done nothing to raise the ire or indignation of its citizens and instead catapulted us into a nauseating spin whereby the end result has been an over abundance of retching to the point we either don’t care, think it’s incredibly funny or both.

Perhaps our reaction is more of a testament to American capitalism than American apathy.  We have become so complacent; fat and happy consumers who even while on minimum wage can make payments on the big TV, purchase pay per view cable and enjoy most of the creature comforts that help insulate us from the outside world where realities aren’t scripted and sponsors don’t pony up the cost to wrap up the problem before the end of the program.

Even as our economy plunges toward the next great depression most people don’t seem to truly appreciate the dire straits our nation is headed for.  When was the last time we had a significant march on the capital, focused on one main topic and not a disenfranchised collection of separate interests that has all the power and intensity of a 1st graders juice box.

The time to stand and demand is more crucial to the health and welfare of our society than at any time before it.  The tide is rising and unless we take action to stem the raging waters of destruction our once proud and innovative nation will become nothing more than a watermark on the pages of history.

Written by Andrew Torchon

In the land of the free and the home of the brave, the instilling of the public trust to guard the very sanctity of life is placed in the well worn glad-hands of our elected officials. It is their sworn duty to uphold the law while securing for its citizens safe harbor from threats both foreign and domestic.

To this end they must carefully discern through myriads of information and weigh options that best benefit the people for which they serve.

Case in point: The President of the United States, in his execution of this directive must be above personal gain and use objective reasoning in order to provide what’s best for all the people and not just for his supporters. The abuse of this power is cause for impeachment or censorship and to deliberately steer the country toward a direction of war where lives are lost and economies are plundered should be grounds for criminal prosecution.

For the nation to introduce articles of impeachment it must be determined that a President committed treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors. In The Federalist Papers, No. 65, Hamilton wrote:

“The subjects of [impeachment] jurisdiction are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust.” 

Trust being a key factor.

On June 8^th 2008, Democratic Rep. Dennis Kucinich submitted to the House of Representatives an official resolution for the impeachment of President George W. Bush.

This was the third time in U.S.history that a President had been subjected to the impeachment process. The first being Andrew Johnson who was Abraham Lincoln’s Vice President and then succeeded to the Presidency upon his death.  Interestingly the Lincoln Johnson ticket was the first time a Republican (Lincoln) and a Democrat (Johnson) had joined parties and won the White House. The solidarity of this political junction was soon to be outlived as Johnson was brought before the House on charges stemming from his conciliatory policies toward the South during the time of Reconstruction. He committed the crimes of attempting to expedite the reincorporation of his former Confederates back into the Union and vetoed civil rights bills.

Denying the rights of newly freed slaves after the intense and bloody battles of the Civil War was viewed by Congress as something of a step backwards.  Considering the fairly recent passage of the Emancipation Act by his predecessor, Johnson’s veto rightly created a bitter dispute with the Radical Republican Party which promptly called for his impeachment.

They lost the bid by one vote.  

Bill Clinton, the second President to be indicted, was impeached for perjury and obstruction of justice. Clintonfought charges that in essence stemmed from a vindictive Republican caucus capitalizing on his lack of judgment by flaunting his libido in the White House and for callous disregard for cigars. Jumping at this open opportunity to disgrace the Democratic King, impeachment articles were introduced basically because of Bill’s ill-conceived attempt to lie under oath about his relationship with Monica Lewinsky; if so facto – being tried not so much for his affair, but for his disregard for the law and then trying to cover it up. Although his actions of Oval copulation were inappropriate in any professional environment, and as titillating as it was for the public, this was hardly worth of the expenditure of taxes.   

One other President; Nixon, after the debacle of Watergate, was to be tried on similar charges of lying to the grand jury about his involvement with the illegal break in of the same named hotel as well as unwarranted wire taps and obstruction of justice. Tricky Dick slipped past the indictment by resigning from office before it could be officially rendered.

Of the past Presidents to have been brought up on charges, only one had set in motion a scenario in which lives have been sacrificed at the alter of the almighty dollar.

The introduction by Representative Kucinich to impeach George W. Bush symbolizes a turning point in U.S. history. It is at this junction upon whom the American people will determine if they sincerely stand for justice and have the ability to force their leaders to uphold truth.

This edict, initiated in response to President Bush’s manufacturing of a case to invade Iraq, has far greater implications and has generated an incalculable amount of damage to the country and the world in general.

 Under the Rationales for impeachment is listed:

·       Constitutionality of invasion and its Justification.

·       Unlawful combatant status.

·       Alleged declassification for political purposes.

·       Expanded executive powers.

·       Illegally detaining without charges U.S. citizens and foreign captives, as well as charges on global warming, Hurricane Katrina, voting rights and more.

35 articles in all have been submitted to the House for crimes and misdemeanors perpetrated by the President against the people of the United States of America.

Unfortunately impeachment is more of a political than legal process and must be approved by Congress. Therefore the evidence to secure such an indictment must not only be rock solid but more importantly be supported by the public in order to pressure Congress to move forward. This means representatives must take the bold stance of disavowing party allegiance and decree full effort will be manifested to uphold the law and obtain justice.

Precisely because it is a political pogrom explains why the Republican loathing of then President Clinton fueled the conservative populace into allowing his censure for the copious act of having sex with a consenting intern where as George W. Bush has not even had so much as a Congressional chastisement for falsely leading the country into a war that has cost thousands of lives, billions of dollars and placed the nation on the very brink of a modern day Depression.

Examine these various deceits and manipulations perpetrated by Bush, Cheney, Rice and Cabinet for a more comprehensive insight into the reasons for prosecution:

In June of 2003, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence began an official investigation to review information gathered from the nation’s top spy and governmental services. This project lasted 5 years and had Committee Senators pouring through thousands upon thousands of documents in their search to determine what facts supported President Bush’s claim that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the stability of the Middle East and the security of the United States.

> Was Hussein violating human rights which included the actual use of Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) against his own people?

> Was he developing and stock piling an arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological death to be used either directly or indirectly at the very heart of Democracy, the USA?

> Was Saddam in league with our nemeses Al Qaeda and joined them in plotting the destruction of our freedom loving way of life?

After 9/11 George W. Bush in one of his most stirring and perhaps best speeches to date, told the nation and the world that the United States would combat terrorism where ever it festered. The sentiment of the President’s discord was a preamble to his plan to finish the job his father, George H.W. Bush started.

Creating an atmosphere of fear not seen since the Red Scare of Communism, Bush began to lay the ground work that would garner the country’s support to invade Iraq, a country still recovering from the effects of the last Gulf War. Never mind that the devastation of the Twin Towerswas perpetrated by Al-Qaeda and that we were already entrenched in Afghanistan, Iraq was where the oil was and that was George’s true target.

After swimming through an ocean of papers, interviews and photographs the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Assessments on Iraq provided proof positive that the Bush administration and its intrepid leader George W. mislead the American public with faulty, inaccurate and confusing information sequentially driving an agenda to wage war on Iraq.

Let’s be clear about this.

The administration did not just misinterpret information from their Intelligence resources nor was the data particularly incorrect or altered to meet the President’s schema.

The President of the United States and his Cabinet members totally ignored the complete findings of their own departments such as the Department of Energy, (DOE), Intelligence agencies (CIA, DIA, DOD, etc.), military advisors and briefings from the NIE and instead created a campaign of propaganda designed to convince the citizens of the free world that Iraq was on the verge of starting the next world war.

The IC had reported to the President that Iraqmay have ties with Al-Qaeda a statement hardly considered to be earth shattering as just about every Middle Eastern country has some ties with some terrorist organization. Jordan, Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon have been supporting various terrorist factions for years in their attempts to rid the world of Israel. But Bush was not about to go after any of them, especially the Saudis since he and his family have been tied together since before Daddy was President.

So if the President truly wanted to rid the world of terrorism why not go after some of the other countries like Malaysia or Pakistan? These countries have been harboring bomb making fanatic for decades and have trained some of the world’s most lethal combatants.

Why? No oil.

The information from the IC regarding Iraq’s connections to Al-Qaeda was tainted and loose at best. While ties to Al-Qaeda were more prominent from 1970 to the 1990s, post Gulf War alliances had become weakened. Unfortunately the Intelligence communities still held on to its original claims mostly because they lacked first hand knowledge of anything different. The CIA did not have any agents in the region to gather updated information claiming “it was too hard” to get someone imbedded in such a risky adventure.  That’s right – the CIA couldn’t get a spy in place.

The Committee commented that the top spy agency relied too heavily on foreign espionage data and stripped details about its sources from its reports. All together the agencies techniques for accumulating information along with its compunction for relying on past information as the foundation for current events proved the reports were not so much written on CIA letterhead as they were on a mound of Swiss cheese. 

Informed on four earlier occasions starting in the spring of 2002 that Hussein was not the threat the Bush administration wanted him to be – months prior to the Iraqi engagement, Bush, Cheney and their cohorts continued to push the party line of warmongering that would paint Iraq as fully capable and a button push away from using chemical and biological weapons against the United States or to supply them to our enemies.

In October of 2002 the first of many reports that were in direct disagreement with the President’s assertion on the precarious state of an Iraqi threat came from the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE).

The NIE produces a one page summary of intelligence activities for the Commander in Chief which is written under the policy to inform the President with the “best, unvarnished, and unbiased information — regardless of whether analytic judgments conform to U.S. policy.”

The October summary contradicted George W’s announcements to the press that Iraq was building its nuclear program.

The President had sighted Saddam’s procurement of high strength aluminum tubing as evidence of the dictators plans to develop nuclear weapons, a belief held by the CIA and a few other espionage agencies. What he didn’t say was that the NIE and the DOE (Department of Energy), reported this statement to be unclear and that these tubes were more likely to be used in conventional small rocket weaponry.

The NIE was proven correct when UN Inspectors reported after Saddam’s fall that Iraq’s nuclear program had been dead for over a decade.

Even after several briefings that pointed out the conflicting information surrounding these aluminum tubes, Bush, Cheney and Rice continued to use the non-conclusive data in their rhetoric to beat the drums for war. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Report also makes clear that the President submerged the truth from other pieces of information in his quest for oil and as many have speculated, personal gain.

The majority of the Intelligence communities’ findings were in sharp contrast with each other, leading to a debate as to what was even believable; a tidbit which if revealed to the public would have cast a serious doubt on the validity of Bush’s proclamations of Hussein’s intent.

The Senate Committee drew corresponding conclusions to show there was little to support the drastic actions of a full scale invasion and that the information gathered was confusing, contradictory and suspect. Even more shocking was the discovery that all the U.S Intelligence agencies were united in its agreement that Hussein was ill-prepared and was highly unlikely to attack the United States.

This view was conveniently ignored by the Bush regime preferring to continue their Black Market campaign by playing on the fears of a country still in shock and grieving from the attacks of 9/11. 

The State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the INR, went so far as to say that even if the U.S attacked first, Saddam would not retaliate either conventionally or through terrorist agents. This statement by Bush’s own Intelligence departments was known prior to engaging in Operation Iraqi Freedom but was kept silent by the White House.

Pundits and provocateurs of Conservative Republican dogma were quick to point out Saddam’s record of human rights atrocities as reason for Bush’s decisive actions. Citing violations of the UN sanctions against the Iraqi government, the Republican right winged hawks soared round the skies of the Capitol screeching to the nation that these same acts of violence and terror would be perpetrated upon our very shores unless action was taken.

Reiterating a constant stream of doom and destruction the Bush administration relentlessly spewed forth unsubstantiated statistics which included Saddam’s building of nuclear weapons, the creation of a mobile chemical arsenal, a development program for biological weapons and that Saddam had direct ties to terrorist organizations.

The threat of biological warfare struck a tremendous chord with the American public and the Administration played it readily. However the one and only resource for information regarding Iraq’s biological warfare program and abilities came from a man code named CURVE BALL.

CURVE BALL, the Senate report states; was a facilities design engineer with NO biological weapons expertise and zero experience in life sciences.

The inclusion of this severe lack of expertise in a field so incredibly scientific and paramount to deducing WMD validity was again not forthcoming when the administration presented its “proof” of Saddam’s development of biological armaments.

The report went on to say that CURVE BALL told his handlers that the project he was working on had nothing to do with producing biological agents.

A CIA analyst told Committee staff members that the Department of Defense case worker who supplied technical advice on project CURVE BALL and was the only person to have actually met him prior to the invasion, expressed – “…the guy (CURVE BALL) might be an alcoholic and that bothered him a lot.”

The CIA responded further on the subject of assumed biological weapons to be available to Saddam – “We have no evidence that Iraqever weaponized small pox.”

The agency additionally noted that; “The information linking this to BW (biological warfare), was so incredibly sketchy that this is sort of our best guess. “ 

The NIE report of October 2002 further showed that there was no evidence to support that Iraqhad the research and development, production or weaponization of an active and advance biological weapons program. This was again in direct disagreement with the President’s statement made to the UN in an address on September 12, 2002, in a speech to the American people on October 7, 2002 and for a third time during his State of the Union on January 28, 2003

.  

Three separate occasions the leader of the free world, our President, blatantly presented false and misleading information.

During the course of the IC’s (Intelligence Community) investigation into Iraq’s WMD capabilities it became apparent that a considerable bias was prevailing within in the community. Analysts were succumbing to a form of “group think” where by bad or irrational decisions were being made in order to conform to the consensus of the group.

Indeed the analytical assessments being performed by the majority had harbored expectations of finding WMD capabilities allowing this preconceived notion to prevail over the use of objective evaluation gathered from the intelligence reporting.

The IC personnel involved with the WMD issue had the roots of its thought process buried as far back as 1991 when Iraq lied to UN inspectors about their weapons of mass destruction and its programs. It was a crucial element of the IC’s strategic thinking and having been burned by their previous inability to detect the 9/11 catastrophe it is no small wonder they would rely on this past experience as the foundation for future analytical reporting when dealing with Iraq.

Those harsh lessons granted reason and rationale to several elements of “group think” behavior such as stifling the examination of other alternatives, the selection of more acceptable previously conceived theories and applying pressure on colleagues to conform to the group’s way of thinking.

The Bush Administration knew and understood the precarious nature of the data being offered to the public but preferred to encourage the idea of Iraq as a formidable enemy even though the facts was not in evidence.  

On August 26^th, 2002 Vice President Cheney spoke to the Veterans of Foreign War national convention in Nashville. Playing to a welcoming audience the VP stated:

“We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons.”

Cheney pointed to Hussein’s own son-in-law, Hussein Kamel al-Majid as the source of this information and it was true that Majid was responsible in 1994 for running Iraq’s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs. 

However Majid informed American intelligence officials back in 1995 that the programs were dismantled, a fact Mr. Cheney conveniently removed from his speech.

In what could only be considered the most amazing feat of intelligence prestidigitation, was how Hussein Kamel al-Majid could have possibly had any knowledge of Iraq’s nuclear activities as sighted by the Vice President in 2002.  

Why? Because –

Majid was assassinated upon his return to his country – in 1996. Six years prior to Vice President Cheney’s reference in his speech.  Apparently dead men do tell tales.

This was not the first time the Vice President would commit falsehoods to further the master plan of blood for oil.

While on the television show “Meet the Press” Cheney emphatically told his host and the viewing public that “in fact” and “with absolute certainty” the dictator of Iraq was amassing the equipment required to build a nuclear weapon. 

These statements were quite the opposite of the CIA’s own reports that did not agree with his affirmations. The agency leaned toward more realistic phrases such as “could mean” or “suggested”, words that indicated uncertainty unlike Mr. Cheney’s rhetoric that would leave the listener with no doubt.

The Bush Administration exploitation of threats from abroad did more than just provide an excuse to invade Iraq. In what can be described as an attack upon our own Constitution, the White House launched several initiatives propagated to secure the nation from terrorism when in fact what they have accomplished was the circumvention of freedoms from its citizens.  

Americans looking to discover where Lady Liberty is hiding should start by reviewing the government’s use of warrantless wiretaps, something supposedly banned by the Fourth Amendment.  It should be noted that George W. was not truly and solely responsible for violating this Constitutional right. He just pushed it beyond the limit.

In 1978 during the Carter Administration, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) was written into Federal law. The legislation was a direct result the Senate investigation into former President Nixon’s abuse of federal resources to spy on political and activists groups; hence Watergate and in effect opened the flood gates to the Bush Administration’s creation of the Patriot Act.

The FISA provided for a secret court that would approve or deny requests for search warrants. Designed to allow for the collection of intelligence information between foreign powers, agents of foreign powers and U.S. citizens that are engaged in espionage it allowed for warrantless spying for up to a year. If the surveillance was to be done on a U.S. citizen then authorization had to be obtained within 72 hours after the invasion of privacy began. 

The court held Judicial and congressional oversight of government’s covert surveillance activities and helped maintain the secrecy required to protect national security, a point the Bush White House would frequently use in its argument against those who would oppose this tool as a way to combat terrorism.

The ordering of warrantless surveillance operations strikes at the very heart of the Fourth Amendment, a corner stone of the Bill of Rights designed to protect the American people from their own government’s intrusion. Prohibiting against unlawful searches and seizures, the 4^th Amendment was drafted by our Founding Fathers in direct response to the oppression they experienced at the hands of a tyrannical King George. Somehow our own George has been able to do this without a Revolution.

The FISA was originally drawn to check the power of the President even as it allowed certain abilities to obtain information that could be vital to the nation’s security. It was some what of a double edged sword giving power to the government to in effect evade the 4^th Amendment’s decree of holding its citizen’s privacy sacred while at the same time monitoring the Oval offices use of such power.

The Bush Administration concocted the scenario that in order to secure the nation from terrorism and maintain their vision of the American way of life they required the ability to broaden the FISA.

Apparently the Act did not give the Executive branch full license to spy on everyone because the FISA focused on “foreign powers and agents” and did not consider that individuals of terrorist factions fell into that category. It also required them to actually prove their need for surveillance of U.S.citizens within a very short time frame. This inconvenience, they felt, would undermine their capabilities to thwart the foes of our Rockwellian lifestyle.

Of course the rules of Habeas Corpus, due process, and the right to a fair and public trial could get lost in the shuffle but the rational was simple; it’s all about the ends that justify the means.

In order to provide fuel to an already paranoid situation, the White House directed the Justice Department to draft the USA Patriotic Act.  The title means “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001″. This mouthful of an amendement to the FISA now expanded the reach of law enforcement agencies and the secret court to assumably fight terrorism. However the wide scope permitted by the Act gives the nations police and spy forces the gift of searching just about everything you have and watching everything you do, all in the name of homeland security.

Under the Patriot Act the F.B.I., NSA, CIA and almost any other badge toting department can look into your personal telephone and e-mail communications. They can pry into your financial, business, medical and library records and they can do all of this without a court order, your permission or even your knowledge.

But that’s just the beginning.

The Patriot Act provides for the authorization of indefinite detentions of immigrants and gives officers the ability to search your home or business again without the need to justify the action to a Judge, ask for the owner’s consent or even giving you the courtesy of letting you know they are doing it.  You just come home and find your house tossed.

Although the original bill, which was passed by a large margin in both houses and by both parties, has been changed slightly, the body of the language has remained intact and the powers of the enforcement agencies has pretty much been undeluted Challendged because of it’s obvious unconstitutionality, the Patriotic Act, although highly criticized for ignoring a host of civil liberties, was reauthorized by Congress and signed into law by the President in 2006.  The sunset provision of the Act that would have given it a time restriction has also been relieved.

The impeachement of President George W. Bush is dependant upon not so much what he did but to an extent what the American people will do to stand up to its elected leaders and hold them accountable. As despicable the actions of the President are, if we the people allow it to continue we make ourselves no better a person than the one committing the crime.

Thomas Jefferson said –

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. What country can preserve its liberties if their rulers are not reminded from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance.”

And it is the people’s responsibility to actually turn off the big screen propaganda machine of Broadcast media, get off the damn couch, put down the Cheetos and take to the streets of the Capitol.  It is not just an American right to protest injustice it’s a tradition.

If we do not hold the representatives we send to govern our land accountable for the actions they take that directly affect our lives, we can blame no one but ourselves for the loss of freedom and the extinction of liberty.

Benjamin Franklin said it best over 200 years ago. –

 “They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty or safety.”